


Bronchioles

by Hale13



Series: Whump Bingo 2020 [16]
Category: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Asthma, Asthmatic Peter Parker, Gen, Human Disaster Peter Parker, Irondad, Peter Parker Needs a Break, Peter Parker Whump, Peter Parker is a Mess, Pneumonia, Sick Peter Parker, Sickfic, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Whump, Whump Bingo, Whumptober
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:41:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27022936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hale13/pseuds/Hale13
Summary: Winters used to be the absolute worst for Peter due to his asthma.  At least the spider bite cured him right?Can be a sequel to ‘A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out’.(For Bingo space G1 – Trying to communicate or command even though they can only speak a few words at a time.)
Relationships: Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Series: Whump Bingo 2020 [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1943986
Comments: 16
Kudos: 219
Collections: Favourites (BQuincy)





	Bronchioles

**Author's Note:**

> There’s a bit more artistic license here since I took it from ‘communicate a few words at a time’ to ‘unable to communicate’. 
> 
> Whoops.

Growing up with severe asthma had left Peter with perpetually sucky lungs and a propensity to catch every cold and flu that tore through the student body every year. From about November through mid-January he would have a clogged nose, persistent cough and croaking voice from the secondary bronchitis. Thank God May was a nurse; she was able to manage most of his severe asthma attacks at home with the nebulizer she had bought for him and knew all the best tricks to help lessen the symptoms that came with the bronchitis.

However, even with all of that, Peter still ended up in the hospital on oxygen and getting frequent nebulization treatments at least twice every winter season if not more often. The one thing he was most thankful to the spider bite for was curing his asthma and making him immune to most of the hell-viruses than ran rampant through Midtown in the fall and winter. Even with insurance, hospital stays weren’t cheap.

Well at least he thought he was immune until he caught the flu the year after his bite and ended up holed in his room at the Tower, vomiting up everything he had eaten in the past year and taking plenty of lukewarm baths since they hadn’t been able to create an anti-emetic or antipyretic for him yet. He was hoping that the first time he met Bruce Banner he would seem at least semi-intelligent and wouldn’t immediately barf on the man’s shoes.

Dr. Banner had at least been really nice about it though. Mr. Stark had nearly pissed himself laughing at the horror struck expression on Peter’s face.

So here Peter was a couple weeks after the ‘vomit-incident’, mostly on the mend bar the ragged cough that had been nagging him and back in the shop with Mr. Stark.

“Might want to cut it down to a pack a day over there buck-o. Those things are bad for your lungs,” Mr. Stark teased as Peter engaged in another coughing jag, barely managing to roll his eyes at the man. “Seriously though Pete, what’s going on? You pick up a cold?”

Peter shrugged and took a long pull from his water bottle, slightly breathless. “Started up right after the flu,” he rasped out painfully, taking another long sip from his bottle. Maybe he should make some tea. Did Mr. Stark even have tea?

“You’re not answering my question kiddo. Do you have a cold?”

“I don’t think so?” Peter answered, just as much of a question as Mr. Stark had asked. “I mean my nose isn’t stuffed up? I just have a cough,” his next breath sounded more like a wheeze and he rubbed his hand firmly over the pressure building in his sternum. Tony caught the action and laser focused on it, his eyebrow tilting up.

“Does you chest hurt?”

“A little,” Peter admitted, dropping his hand back into his lap. He really wanted to continue the soothing motions but he didn’t want to worry Mr. Stark too much. “I used to get really bad bronchitis every year from my asthma, this kinda feels like that.”

“You have asthma?” Mr. Stark asked, alarmed. He immediately stood up and moved closer to Peter who tried to stifle the wheezes he could feel building in his chest.

“Not anymore. The bite cured me.”

Mr. Stark still looked skeptical. “You can’t know that for sure. We should run some tests,” Peter groaned and tipped his head forward to rest on the cool lab bench. “Until then, I say we call it quits for the night, its pretty late. Does a humidifier normally help the cough?” Peter blinked up at his mentor. It was only nine but Peter was pretty exhausted. Going to bed early sounded pretty good to him. “Pete did you hear me?”

“Hmmm?”

“Does a humidifier help?” Tony repeated slowly, a pinched look on his face.

“Yeah it used to. The air was always too dry without it.” Peter could remember sitting on the bathroom floor cuddled up with Ben while he ran through all the hot water in the building to have enough steam in the bathroom to make it easier to breathe for Peter. Something warm and fond curled up in his chest at the memory; Peter may have always physically felt like hot garbage, but these were some of his favorite memories: curling up on the floor with his head in Ben’s lap and listening to him read while a hand carded through his hair.

After Ben passed, May bought the humidifier – neither one of them could stand to relive those days.

“I think I’ve got one shoved into a closet somewhere,” Mr. Stark said thoughtfully, tapping his bottom lip with his index finger. “How’s about you go upstairs and take a hot shower and I’ll find the humidifier and then you go to bed. Sound good?”

“Sure,” Peter was not going to argue, he was feeling more tired by the second and breathing the dry, cool air of the work shop physically hurt his already abused throat.

The shower in Peter’s en-suite was _heavenly_. It could easily fit three or four grown adults and the water pressure was so amazing, there was always plenty of hot water. FRIDAY, bless her, already had the shower running on high heat to fill the bathroom with steam when Peter got there before lowering it to his preferred temperature. He spent the first few minutes letting the water cascade down his spine and soothe all his muscle aches before he ducked his head under the spray and started to wash all the product out. Once clean he sat on the built in bench and just focused on breathing. He had hoped that the hot shower would clear things up but he chest still ached and burned and each inhale took more effort.

Peter groaned and rested his warm forehead against the cool tile of the shower wall. He forgot how much lung issues sucked.

“You okay in there bud?” Tony asked, tapping on the door. “You’ve been in there for over thirty minutes.” Huh, time flies Peter supposes.

“Yeah, I’ll be out in a second,” he called back before choking down a cough. He took another second to control the spasms in his chest before cutting off the water and climbing out into the steaming room. He probably shouldn’t have brought his pajamas into the bathroom, they were damp from all the steam and stuck wetly to his pruned skin.

By the time he had emerged into the bedroom, Tony had set up the humidifier by the head of his bed and it was already spurting out vapor, taking the edge off the dry air in the room. “Need anything else bambino?” Tony asked as Peter let himself collapse gracelessly onto his bed, pulling the comforter up to his chin.

“‘M okay,” He muttered, already half asleep. He barely noted the chuckle Tony let out before flipping off the light and closing the door. Peter dropped into sleep effortlessly.

* * *

Peter’s room was still pitched in darkness when he woke up struggling to breath.

“Peter you seem to be in physical distress,” FRIDAY’s calm voice intoned from above him. “I have alerted Boss and he is on his way.” Peter wanted to respond but he couldn’t. Instead, he curled up tightly, resting his head on his knees and gripping his chest tightly with his right hand, trying to keep calm and take in as much air as he could.

He was barely aware of Tony bursting into the room and flipping on the light switch before he dropped down next to Peter on the bed and forced him to uncurl. It only took Tony a brief look at Peter’s face before he declared “FRI have Banner meet us in MedBay, tell him its an emergency,” before he gently said to Peter “I think you’re having an asthma attack. Can you stand to get to MedBay or do you need me to carry you?”

Peter just looked at Tony with a sense of dread taking root in his gut. “I-,” he tried to get out, a wheeze cutting him off. “I-I don’t,” his next gasp sounded like a death rattle and Tony clearly decided to not wait for Peter’s answer and just scooped him up, making quickly for the elevator.

“If you were about to say that you don’t have asthma I’m going to have to call ‘bullshit’,” his mentor panted lightly as he slid into the elevator and it took off at a speed that was definitely not OSHA compliant to the MedBay floor. Bruce met the at the elevator door and shoved an albuterol inhaler between Peter’s lips before Tony had even exited, puffing in a single dose and telling Peter to hold his breath for a few seconds. He gave Peter a second puff as he shouldered through into one of the trauma rooms.

“Is that helping at all Peter?” Dr. Banner asked as he set up a breathing treatment, Peter just let out a painful wheeze in answer and continued to gasp for breath until the mask was shoved over his face and the sharp smell of albuterol consumed his senses. “I’m going to give you an IV dose of corticosteroid as well to try to open up your bronchioles, just try to take deep, even breaths okay?”

Peter nodded and fell back into the breathing pattern May had taught him when he was young and had his first asthma attack that was bad enough to send him to the hospital. He was so focused on that he never felt Dr. Banner place the IV catheter or inject the steroid. It took longer than he remembered, but, slowly, his chest cleared enough for him to take full breaths and he collapsed wearily against the pillows that we propped up behind him, one hand still resting on the mask providing the albuterol and oxygen.

“Better?” Dr. Banner asked rhetorically, pulling his stethoscope out of his pocket and helping Peter lean forward to listen to his lungs. Peter felt the bell move back and forth across his back and saw Dr. Banner frown out of the corner of his eye. “I know you just got over the flu but have you been having any respiratory symptoms? Just nod yes or no.” Peter nodded yes. “Have you felt better at all since the flu,” and Peter honestly had to think about that one. He had pretty bad GI symptoms for the first couple days before the sneezing and coughing sat in, had that ever gone away? He decided to shrug instead of giving a straight answer.

“I can answer that: no, he’s felt like shit ever since the flu but it has gotten worse since I saw him on Tuesday.” Mr. Stark answered from his perch on the bed, hip to hip with Peter.

Dr. Banner nodded sagely. “Once you finish the breathing treatment I want to get a radiograph of you chest, I have some suspicions for what might be going on but I need to diagnostics to confirm.” Despite how ominous that sounded, Peter gave a thumb’s up and closed his eyes, focusing on taking deep breaths.

Once Peter had finished the treatment and Bruce had announced that Peter was stable enough on just supplemental oxygen from a nasal cannula, Bruce had rolled in the x-ray machine and shooed Tony out of the room, putting the protective lead garments on both Peter and himself before positioning Peter’s chest and taking a couple different x-rays.

“So what’s the verdict doc?” Tony asked once he had been allowed back into the room and the large machine had been pushed into an empty corner. Dr. Banner used one of the Stark Holo Tablets to project the x-ray into the air.

“So based on the rad and exam I’m going to tentatively diagnose you with pneumonia pending a second opinion.”

“Pneumonia?” Peter forced out, his voice hoarse and painful. Tony passed him a bottle of water and Peter gave him a grateful smile.

“Probably caused by your asthma,” Dr. Banner confirmed, gesturing again the the x-ray that showed large white patches mixing in with the healthy black sections of Peter’s lungs.

“But the bite…”

“Didn’t cure you,” Bruce said. “Or, at least, that’s my theory.”

“Well don’t leave us in suspense here Bruce-bear, break it down for us,” Tony said, putting his arm around Peter’s shoulders and pulling him into his side.

“I suspect that you still have asthma but, because of your healing factor, your body works to quickly correct itself before any possible asthma attack can come to fruition,” Dr. Banner told them, admiration in his gaze. “Your mutation really is remarkable Peter. Once you feel better you’ll have to let Dr. Cho and I run some more tests.”

“Cool down there Dr. Jekyll,” Tony said, forming the time-out sign with his hands. “So that means that Peter can still have asthma attacks?”

“That’s correct,” Bruce said, subduing himself. “All of his – well your – previous risk factors can still cause you to have an attack. And I’m postulating that you used to have a lot of respiratory issues secondary to asthma this time of year right?” Peter nodded to confirm. “Well that gives us something to work with at least. Once you feel better we can note all of your risk factors and work on a rescue inhaler that will actually work for you. Until then, you need to rest. I’ll give you another breathing treatment in a few hours and call Dr. Cho to see if she can come in tomorrow for a second opinion.”

“Okay,” Peter responded, exhausted, and leaned further into Tony’s side as his mentor started running gentle fingers through his hair. 

“Go ahead and sleep buddy,” he said quietly, the lights automatically dimming thanks to FRIDAY. “I’ll give May a call first thing in the morning.”

Peter yawned in answer and snuggled in close, easily falling asleep to the warm feeling of fingers in his curls. 

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is a lovely combo of how I was treated for asthma as a child/how I treat cats for asthma now. I doubt if this is fully compatible to how humans are truly treated.
> 
> I have always liked the idea that the spider bite never actually cured Peter but that it just helped heal him before he could really have any issues. It was a really fun topic to play in that I might dip back into in the future.
> 
> Thanks to the people who sent me some awesome prompt help! I’m always looking for more so, if you can think of anything, please send me a request!
> 
> I don’t have a tumblr but join me over on Twitter @Hale1310 - I just set it up and I’m looking for some prompts to combine with these bingo prompts and for separate stories!
> 
> I hope you enjoyed!


End file.
